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Sammy Curcuru arrived as a freshman in Syracuse’s Bandier program with no music to show for himself. But that didn’t matter. In a few months, he ascended Syracuse’s music scene, releasing his first single while becoming a regular at house shows. This past summer, he played his first live performance outside of SU, in front of hometown faces and high school friends at PJ’s Lager House in Detroit.

“That show in Michigan was such a surreal thing because my music had only been real in Syracuse,” Curcuru said, wearing a Detroit Lions jersey and gym shorts. “But it was real, and it was such a full circle moment.”

Exposed to early 2000s pop and pop punk between his sisters’ and mother’s obsession with Pink, it’s no surprise that Curcuru’s sound as an artist plays upon the energy and production of his childhood anthems. Curcuru reminisced on his elementary school band days when he learned the piano and drums. He found his musical obsession in eighth grade by messing around with and creating beats on GarageBand.

Curcuru grew up watching dozens of YouTubers like Aries, Ramzoid and Nick Mira, who were making original music on beat-making software like GarageBand. He spent hours trying to recreate pre-existing beats to understand the anatomy of songs on his iPhone.

When he got his first laptop before high school, Curcuru dove head first into the production space. At a time when SoundCloud rappers were all over the internet, Curcuru and his friend released his first song “All That’s Left,” which has since been wiped from all platforms.

Despite all the time that Curcuru spent tinkering with beats and learning instruments, he never released anything.

“I kind of panicked and was really self-conscious about all these other kids who had way more sh*t going for them,” Curcuru said.

It wasn’t until late October of his first year that Curcuru decided he needed to release something, anything, to get his name out there. He turned to a song he’d worked on the summer before freshman year with an internet friend, David Bryant, also known by his producer name easeupkid.

Bryant discovered Curcuru on TikTok, where he posted minute-long clips of unreleased music. Bryant fell in love with Curcuru’s sound and immediately wanted to collaborate.

The pair’s song remained unfinished for months until one day, sitting at his desk in Day Hall, Curcuru felt it was time to finish and release his first single, “Im Down if Ur Down.”

Cassandra Roshu | Photo Editor

Curcuru performed for the first time off-campus over the summer in his hometown of Detroit, Michigan at PJ’s Lager House. The performance made his life as a performer seem real.
Cassandra Roshu | Photo Editor

“I just decided, I was going to finish the song, name this song and release it,” Curcuru said. “It was the first and only time where I sat down and finished something in one sitting that I never edited again.”

The song was released on Spotify on Nov. 15 2022, reaching 1,000 streams before Curcuru went to the dining hall for breakfast.

“To this day I still don’t understand why or where those people came from,” Curcuru said.

Two weeks later, Buddy Murphy, one of the founders of the Mudpit, booked Curcuru to play on the Dec. 3 bill along with 33col3 and 2% Reese. Murphy had been hearing a lot of buzz about Curcuru being a Bandier freshman who was a very animated character that made “legit pop music.”

“When I first met Sammy he was this scrawny white kid with baggy clothes on. I had no clue how he would do at the show,” Murphy said.

After Murphy and Curcuru set up the lighting, stage and layout of the crowd, Murphy got the vibe that Curcuru really knew what he was doing. He watched him go back and forth with Brandon Ferrante, the sound guy, perfecting what they wanted the crowd to hear.

Curcuru played a couple of original unreleased songs, a Role Model cover and a Jack Harlow cover before ending with “Im Down if Ur Down.” With his single being out for less than three weeks, both Curcuru and Murphy were shocked to see the crowd scream back every word.

“There were probably 30 to 50 girls in the crowd that knew every word to his one song that was released and then one song that was unreleased,” Murphy said. “I was like, how the f*ck is this happening?”

Curcuru insists this show was the pivotal moment when he decided he was going to pursue a music career. Coining his sound as pop music that is refreshing enough for rap fans to consume, Curcuru dove head first into releasing his next single, “Look @ U” which was released on March 8.

With two songs out, a write-up in Lyrical Lemonade, and the consistent flow of live shows on campus, Curcuru finished his freshman year in a completely different place than where he started.

“I always loved Sammy’s voice but his early TikToks were kinda this cringe pop punk, Machine Gun Kelly-inspired sound,” Bryant said. “The way Sammy has curated himself and presented his music is incredible to watch.”

Things slowed down when Curcuru returned home to Michigan for the summer. He went back to recording music in his bedroom just like he did throughout high school. Feeling disconnected from the buzz of performing live most weekends at SU, Curcuru tried to focus on his next release and booking a show in Detroit.

Curcuru reserved his gig at PJ’s Lager House in midsummer and planned to release his first music video to his then-unreleased single “Messy Room” a few days prior to the show. On July 19, Curcuru dropped the song and video that was filmed entirely on SU’s campus between Thornden Park, Shaffer Hall and the Barnes Center.

Currently, “Messy Room” has over 1,600 views on YouTube and 8,000 streams on Spotify. It’s hard to compare freshman year Curcuru, who had no music to show for himself, to the person who played in Detroit this summer and just announced a Sept. 30 show at Mercury Lounge in New York City.

“I spent six years on the sideline, finger on the rainy window and then I get here and my music does better than it probably should,” Curcuru said. “It’s giving me this hunger for wanting to do more.”

Published on September 13, 2023 at 11:42 pm